Suspension hooks attached to and carried by overhead conveyor chains are commonly use on poultry and fowl processing lines. Such suspension hooks are commonly referred to as shackles. Poultry carcasses are suspended by their legs from respective ones of the shackles and are carried by the conveyor chains past and through various processing stations of the processing line. Such stations might include, for example, eviscerators, cut-up stations, wing cutters, and other machines that cut-up and otherwise process poultry carcasses. European patent 0786208 discloses a poultry support shackle that includes a trolley that is suspended from and moved by a conveyor chain along a conveyor track. Poultry suspension hooks or shackles from which poultry carcasses can be suspended are rotatably mounted to the trolley. An associated turning gear is configured to cooperate with turning pins along the track to rotate the poultry suspension hooks, and thus carcasses suspended therefrom, into predetermined rotary orientations as the trolleys move past the turning pins. This feature is desirable because the carcasses may need to be rotated to different orientations to be presented properly to the various processing stations of the line.
At the locations of individual processing stations, the turning gear is usually retained in its orientation between opposite parallel side guides to inhibit rotation of the turning gear and thus the suspension hook and a poultry carcass suspended therefrom when the suspended poultry carcass is being processed at the processing station. In between processing stations, these parallel side guides may be interrupted or eliminated. The side guides are also interrupted at orienting stations between processing stations where the turning gear is engaged by turning pins to effect rotation of the turning gear and the suspension hook to orient a suspended poultry carcass properly for processing at the next processing station. More specifically, the turning gear, which is a substantially square body, has slots extending inwardly from its corners. These slots are engageable by a turning pin or pins positioned along the conveyor path to rotate the turning gear and suspension hook to a predetermined rotary orientation. A yieldable indexing arrangement, such as a spring biased ball and detent, between the trolley and the turning gear ensures that the rotary orientation is retained as the support shackle moves further along the conveyor. This is of particular importance at locations where lateral side guides are interrupted or not present to maintain the suspension hooks and birds in a desired orientation.
Usually the yieldable indexing arrangement is effective to keep the turning blocks and their suspension hooks in their proper rotary orientations between treatment stations. However, and particularly given the open arrangement of poultry processing lines, there is a risk that accidental external obstructions in the path of the conveyor may unintentionally alter the rotational orientation of a turning block in-between treatment stations. Should this occur and remain undetected, a wrongly oriented suspension hanger and poultry carcass suspended therefrom can cause damage to treatment stations, or at least result in a treated poultry product that is defective and must be discarded.
Accordingly, there is a need for a turning block and suspension hook alignment system for an overhead conveyor adapted to overcome or ameliorate at least one of the disadvantages of the prior art. There also is a need for alternative structures for poultry shackle assemblies that are less complex and cumbersome in assembly and operation and that moreover can be made relatively inexpensively. Alternatively, a need at least exists to provide the consumer with a useful choice. It is to a shackle assembly and method, particularly for poultry processing lines, that meets these and other needs in the industry that the present disclosure is primarily directed.